They say never to judge a book by its cover. But some aspects of a stranger’s personality can apparently be gleaned from a photo, if a new study is to be believed.

Participants in the research were found to be able to accurately judge a stranger’s self-esteem, extroversion and religiosity, from photographs alone.

The research appears in the current issue of Personality and Social psychology Bulletin. Scientists asked participants to assess the personalities of strangers based first on a photo posed to the researchers’ specifications and then on a photo posed the way the subject choose